Friday 12 February 2010

Baba Luda's Coming to Stay!


Olga's mum had her 10-year UK visa issued this morning, and she went straightaway to the travel agent in Ekaterinburg and booked her flights. She'll arrive on March 31st, and leave on September 30th. She's allowed to stay in the UK for 6 months out of 12, so this time around she'll use all 6 months in one stay, but next year she might come over a few times and stay for a couple of months at a time.
We'll take Lara out of nursery for three days a week while Luda is here, which will give them lots of bonding time, and it's a perfect time for Lara to be fully immersed in the Russian language, well, fully immersed for 8 hours a day for three days a week, anyway. So Olga & I have six weeks now to get the house and garden ready, we need to prepare the spare room, and properly dog-proof the garden so Jackson can't escape.
Some might dread the idea of the Mother-in-Law coming to live with them for 6 months, not me - the sooner the better!

Tuesday 9 February 2010

Normal Service has been Resumed

Well, after the crazy night on Sunday/Monday, I was a bit concerned that we'd see a repeat last night - except poor Olga would have to be the one to stay up with the little girl. Lara had a bath to remove two days worth of calamine lotion, and to wash her hair, and this helped to relax her and get her into her normal routine. She had been just too tired on Sunday for any of this. So, she went to sleep at 8pm, and I was on tenterhooks all evening, waiting for the crying, but it never came, to the extent that I went and checked on her at 10.30pm to make sure she was OK! Other than one request to have her blanket put back over her after she'd kicked it off, she slept soundly and only started stirring properly just before 9am, which gave me a nice lie-in too. Olga and I have shared the working-from-home duties today, and this morning she's been running about as happy as normal, with very little itching, which is a relief for everyone I think. The poor thing doesn't look her best, especially when she strips off to sit on the potty, with those blisters, but I hope we're over the worst of it now. Just to keep our feet on the ground, she has woken today with a cold, so not only are we following her around with a potty (she's still doing very well), calamine lotion, anti-histamines, but you can add a box of tissues to that list too.
Latest news from the nursery is they've had from all the different rooms in the nursery, so it looks like all the kids who go there will get it, if they've not already had it. We do think to ourselves that this is the silver lining to this cloud - whilst it's a pain for everyone at the moment, at least for us and for Lara, it'll all be over soon enough and we don't have to dread it happening in future :-)

Sunday 7 February 2010

It's going to be a long night


Is insomnia a side effect of chickenpox? It's 3.15am on Monday morning, and Lara is watching a Winnie the Pooh DVD and eating toast in the lounge.
We had quite a long, tough day today. Lara got us both up around 6.45 this morning, which balances out her new personal best of 10.20am on Saturday morning. She probably would have gone past 10.20am, but we could hear she was stirring and we felt guilty that we were still in bed at that time! It was a lovely day, blue skies and relatively warm, and because we couldn't take Lara to a playground where there would be other kids, we just took her and the boys for a long walk close to where we live. It was 3pm before we got home, and so we didn't really achieve much around the house, which put some pressure on us for Sunday.
We'd decided it was time for a change around of furniture, so we emptied one cabinet in the lounge and moved it, and replaced it with our computer desk from the study, and then went and brought our sofa bed down and put that in the lounge too. It all looks great now, and I'm writing this post at the computer desk while Lara is watching her DVD. All this was achieved between reminding Lara to use the potty, changing her clothes when we didn't remind her in time, and coating her liberally in calamine lotion.  She didn't have a nap despite her early start, well, not until she fell asleep in her chair during her tea. That only lasted a minute or two, but is about the best quality sleep either of us will get tonight from the looks of things!
Olga got her into bed at 6pm, which is very early for Lara, but the peace and quiet would last 15 minutes at most before she'd cry for Mama. Olga was on duty until we tried convincing Lara to go to bed with Olga, around 10.30pm, but Lara was having none of that, and then I took over. I didn't have any more success, I could get her off to sleep for 10 or 15 minutes before I'd get the call to come and give her milk, or water, or just a cuddle. We watched the start of the Superbowl together, then I decided we'd compromise and I set myself up to sleep on Lara's floor. Lara alternated between wanting to sleep with me on the floor, and wanting to sleep in her bed, until 2.15am, when she wanted the potty. I didn't mind this at all, and Lara obliged, but since then, she's been alert and awake, not remotely sleepy. We watched the end of the Superbowl (New Orleans won) in her room, then I decided I wanted a cup of tea, and Lara wanted to watch Winnie. She really is very alert, and has just come bounding up to be, telling me she's finished her toast and could she have a wipe for her hands. At this rate I'll reckon we'll keep going till 6am, when we'll go and wake Mama, and Olga can take it from there. I might try to sneak an hour's sleep then! Olga is going to be "working from home" today with Lara, and maybe we're doing her a favour, I'm sure Lara will be having lengthy naps during the day!
Well, 3.30am now, only 2 and a half hours to go. I've got the sofa bed down here now, perhaps I should pull it out and see if Lara fancies a lie down!! It doesn't look like it. I'll research the side effects of anti-histamines and chickenpox instead...

PS - I managed to record her at 4am...


PPS - She conked out on the sofa at 4.45am! I'm giving her half an hour before I carry her up to her bed.